Drug dealer brandished baseball bat in shop

A convicted drug dealer yesterday admitted brandishing a baseball bat during an “alarming” incident in a village shop.

David Maver claimed he’d been trying to break up a fight between his brother Michael and another man.

At Livingston Sheriff Court Maver, 42, from Broxburn, West Lothian, was fined £450 for causing a disturbance.

He pled guilty to committing a breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner, shouting and brandishing a baseball bat during the incident in a Scotmid store in Winchburgh, West Lothian, on May 24 2013.

The self employed builder and plant hire operator pled not guilty to assaulting Lee Ferrol by chasing him and repeatedly striking him on the head with a baseball bat to his severe injury and danger of life and having an offensive weapon in public and his plea was accepted by the Crown.

Andrew Robertson, prosecuting, said the accused had been captured on CCTV brandishing a baseball bat.

The footage showed that the man he was brandishing it at ran away, he said.

Maver and his brother were seen getting into a car and driving away after the 10pm fracas .

Iain Smith, defending, said his client had an old record which included previous convictions for crimes of disorder.

He said Maver’s brother was engaged in a fight with Mr Ferrol in the shop and he had gone in to help break it up.

He picked up one of two baseball bats his brother had taken into the store and brandished it.

Mr Smith added: “He accepts that people watching that might be alarmed by that, but he’s not set out to cause a disturbance.”

Maver was sentenced to eight years in prison in 1996 and a further nine months in 2011 for drugs offences.